Income inequality has been growing for decades in the UK, extensive evidence reveals. In recent years, so-called ‘austerity’ has served as a smokescreen for even more wealth to be transferred to a handful of millionaires.

Let us start with a few clear parameters. Murderous violence is always wrong and does as much damage to its perpetrators as to its victims. Freedom of expression is at the heart of the free society and must ever be defended. But with that right come responsibilities and an obligation to discernment and humility.

Twelve people were murdered yesterday (7 January) in an appalling attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. This has inflamed religious and ethnic tensions, as the killers are believed to be violent Islamist extremists.